she said you wouldn’t understand

 she said you wouldn’t understand 

she boiled my white school shirts

in a saucepan on the gas ring

she did i tell you

and the wooden poker got smaller and smaller

over the sweating

boy were those shirts white

and in the night she thump thumped

the iron over them sharing the heat of the coal fire 

she did i tell you

other stuff she scrubbing-boarded

in the zinc bath after i got out

she did i tell you

there was a blue bag of whitener as i remember

and artic snow in a waxed pot for chilblains 

how white these memories are in the draught

at the bottom of the curtained stairs before a toasting fire

with snow at the windows

  she cried i tell you

often

she cried for everyone but never for herself

she was called upon the lay out the dead in the village

where the doors were always left unlocked

she would not have understood that cliché

but she understood the sanctimony of the church goers

in their fox stoles and lucky rabbits feet edged with silver

as her smile snuggled me watching them from her bedroom window

 she laughed i tell you

not as often as she cried

laughing leads to crying she often said

           now how sad is that i ask you

i could tell you lots of things but she said not to

they were our secret 

and she took those to her grave

   if i told you all she told me 

you wouldn’t understand 

but she did i tell you